Top 5 Lists of My Favourite Tom Hanks' Movies

Tom Hanks is one of my favourite actors and I’ve watched almost all of his movies. What I like about Tom Hanks is that he can really get into his character and give his character a real life. Very few actors are able to do so. Personally, I think all of his movies are great to watch and there are a lot to choose from but here are “My” top 5 favourite movies of Tom Hanks.

5) The Terminal

The Terminal is a story of Victor Navorski’s (Tom Hanks) unfortunate situation, stuck at the Kennedy Airport without a country. When I say without a country, it means Victor’s homeland erupts in a fiery coup, while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at the airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorised to actually enter the USA and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal’s international transit lounge, until the war at home is over. During his time in the terminal, he goes through lots of ups and downs but somehow he also manages to romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones).  Great movie directed by Spielberg.

4)  Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me If You Can is based on a true story directed by Steven Spielberg, starring two of my favourite actors Tom Hanks as Carl Hanratty and Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank W. Abagnale. Frank  (Leo) is a con artist, master of deception and brilliant forger, whose skill at check fraud has netted him millions of dollars in stolen funds. Just like in real life, in this movie as well, Frank is employed as a doctor, a lawyer, and as a co-pilot for a major airline company- all before reaching his 21^st birthday. Carl (Tom Hanks) is a FBI agent who has made his mission to capture Frank, however Frank is always one step ahead of Carl and the chase continues all across America and Europe.

3) Saving Private Ryan

There have been a lot of movies about World War II, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a war film as realistically portrayed as Saving Private Ryan. It’s filmed in a unique way that draws you into what’s going on and you almost experience what the soldiers are going through. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Hanks (Capt. Miller) as a United States Rangers Captain seeking out a missing soldier (Matt Damon as Pvt. James Ryan) whose three brothers were all killed in battle.

2)  Forrest Gump

“Life’s like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” says Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar-winning performance) as he discusses his lifetime experience with strangers while waiting for a bus. This movie is the story of a sweet and simple man that finds himself at the center of some of the most pivotal events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson, speaks at an anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, discovers the break-in at the Watergate, opens a profitable shrimping business, becomes an original investor in Apple Computers, and decides to run back and forth across the country for several years. I have to say, Robert Zemeckis has brilliantly adapted Winston Groom’s 1986 novel Forrest Gump for the big screen.

1) Cast Away

Cast away has to be in the number one spot of my favourite movies of Tom Hanks. This is simply because of the solid performance shown by Tom Hanks. This movie is what I call One-Man Show. Another great movie directed by Robert Zemeckis about a FedEx employee (Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland) that spends years on a deserted island after his plane crashes. Hanks is the only human on the screen for much of the film, but he does talk to a volleyball he names Wilson. Chuck unsure of when he may return to the civilization learns to endure the emotional and physical stress of his new life.